A lawyer for the US yesterday told a British court that WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange is wanted for crimes that put at risk the lives of people who had helped the West and that journalism is no excuse for criminality.
The 48-year-old is wanted by the US on 18 criminal counts of conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law and could spend decades in prison if convicted.
Lawyer James Lewis, representing the US in the extradition hearing, said Assange had conspired with Chelsea Manning to hack US Department of Defense computers. Assange had also disseminated unredacted material which put the lives of sources at risk, he said.
In doing so, he had identified the names of informants, journalists, dissidents and others in Iraq and Afghanistan who had given help to the US and its allies, Lewis said.
Lewis said the defence claim that Assange might receive a jail term of 170 years was hyperbole.
Jennifer Robinson, Assange’s lawyer, has said that his case could lead to criminalizing activities crucial to investigative journalists.
The hearing at London’s Woolwich Crown Court is to decide if the extradition request meets the requirements set out under a 2003 UK-US treaty, which critics say is stacked in favor of the US.
Judge Vanessa Baraitser previously agreed that the case would get under way before being postponed until May 18, when it would resume again for a further three weeks to allow both sides more time to gather evidence.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
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